Occasionally something crosses my desk which really impresses me, and I think, why didn’t I know about this long before now. Karel Capek is a Czechoslovakian scholar who pubished a book title “In Praise of Newspapers” in 1924 It was translated into English by M. and R. Weatherall. In particular Chapter 11 titled “Holmesiana, or About Detective Stories.” Professor Capek trashes all the detective fiction writers of his genre, but read it for yourself by clicking on the link below!
Category Archives: Detective Fiction
Lost Treasures from the Pulps in 2011
There are many projects underway, and many have been delayed because of the amount of effort involved in Arkham House projects. I get many inquiries about these projects, and each one of them requires an explanation which is time consuming, and so this post should address all questions simultaneously. I can also update it as time goes by. Many of these projects are far advanced, and on the verge of going to press.
The Compleat Adventures of Luther McGavock and Others
by Merle Constiner. Page count not fixed. Hard Cover Folio 462+pp. ISBN 978-1-55246-794-7 @ $75.00
This is a project that has been on the list for almost six years now. There is one earlier collection of Constiner featuring the Adventures of “The Dean.” There are a total of 12 stories in Black Mask and 11 that feature Luther McGavock. These stories will be published with the permission of Keith Alan Deutsch. When compiled this was a slim volume, and so a decision was taken to include Constiner tales from other Pulpmagazines and amend the title accordingly. I am still looking for a couple of these additional stories, and the remainder are now included and with the proof reader. The volume is now substantial and I can only say the delay will eventually well reward the reader’s wait. All the illustrations and covers that accompany the stories have been scanned. The Dustjacker is approved.
The Compleat Adventures of the Suicide Squad
by Emile Tepperman. Hard Cover Folio 400+ pp. ISBN 978-1-55246-752-7 @ $75.00.
This volume collectes the 23 stories, some serialized in Ace G-Man Stories. The text is complete and proof read. All the illustrations and covers that accompany the stories have been scanned. The Dustjacker is approved. The delay has been the integration of the text and illustrations; and simply requires a weekend’s work when there is nothing more pressing to do. Perhaps it will get done in March, in Florida?
The Tong of Terror: The Adventures of Jimmy Wentworth
by Sidney Herschel Small. Hard Cover 400+ pp. ISBN 978-1-55246-775-6 @ $75.00
This volumes collects 30 stories featuring Jimmy Wentworth, a police officer born in China who battles the Chinese Tongs in San Farancisco. Some stories are serialized and there are a total of 75 pulps episodes in the series. The text is complete and the illustrations are scanned and ready for integration. The volume has been proof read. The dustjacket has been designed. I note that I still have to apply for a CIP data, and this will follow shortly. The project still requires a couple more weekenda, with nothing else on deck.
The Compleat Adventures of Donald Everhard
by Gordon Young, with an Introduction by Richard Bleiler. HC 2V 1012 pp. ISBN 978-1-55246-784-8 @ $150.00
This set of two volumes was originally suggested by Richard Bleiler, and has received significant contributions from many sources. The last page of the last story arrived in February 2011. All but one story appeared in Adventure Magazine. All the stories are scanned and appear chronologically by date of publication. There are two covers which will be used on the Dust Jacket. This will be a 2 volume collection with alot of content — 957,500 words actually. There are 27 stories, many are serialzied with 6 parts.
The Compleat Zambra the Detective
by Headon Hill with an Introduction by Bob Adey) Hard Cover Folio 500+ pp. ISBN 978-1-55246-626-1 @ $75.00
This series was suggested by Bob Adey, and he has provided all the content from obscure British magazines from the beginning of the 20th century. Some short stories, and Novellas and at least one Novel. The text has been scnned, but needs another proof reading. (I am an imperfect proof reader, as well as an imperfect webmaster.) The work contines, and this project is unlikely to appear in 2011, but we will try.
Strange Ocean Vistas of Philip M. Fisher
Philip M. Fisher, with an Introduction by Rodney Schroeder, and comprehensive commentary byGary G. Garner. Hard Cover Folio 500pp. ISBN 978-1-55246-530-1 @ $90.00
This project commenced back in 1998 at the suggestion of Gary Garner. The dustjacket has been completed, and features a great oil painting of a Zeppelin. Completing this project is currently not in my hands to do, but I am optimistic that work will proceed again shortly. The project so far received has been proof read.
The Satan Hall Omnibus
by John Carroll Daly. Hard Cover 482+ pp. ISBN 978-1-55246-754-1 @ $90.00
This volume collects 24 stories from Detective Fiction Weekly (some serials) and 2 stories from Black Mask. A couple of the tales proofed to be very elusive, but all are now scanned and proof read. There are many pulp covers to include on the Dust Jacket. All the internal illustrations are scanned and need to be integrated into the text. (437.000 words)
Mr. Chang and Rafferty
by E.A. Apple, writing as A.E. Apple. Hard Cover Folio 4 Volumes ISBN 978-1-55246-829-6 @ $350.00
This project collects all the adventures of Mr. Chang (2-1/2 volumes) and Mr. Rafferty (1-1/2 volumes). The text has now been assembled, and the proof reading is almost complete. There are many pulp covers to include from Detective Story Magazine. The author’s family still lives in Canada, and is looking forward to the publication with enthusiasm. Mr. Chang is Canada’s version of Fu Manchu; and Rafferty is Apple’s incarnation of Raffles. There are a total of 1,286,735 words.
Introducing Mr. Chang . . .
by E.A. Apple. TPB 290 pp. ISBN 978-1-55246-943-9 @ $28.00
This is a small volume, designed as an introudction to the four volume set above. It features novelized, expnaded version of two of the stories contained in the project above, namey Mr. Chang and Scotland Yard and Mr. Chang’s Crime Ray. The book is set up like an Ace Double with the back story inverted and essentially two cover pages and one ISBN
The Otis Adelbert Kline Omnibus
by Otis adelber Kline 2 perhaps 3 Volumes ISBN 978-1-55246-834-0 @ $price not set
This is another very ambitious project which has been stalled. I set the project aside altogether when I was unable to reach I felt was a reasonable agreement with Kline’s estate representative. Since the author passed away in 1996. It is my clear understanding that alll his published writing is out-of-copyright in Canada in 1997. I shall proceed on this understanding without the involvement of the estate. The problem is to find the time, and in the meantime an excellent project languishes in my In-Basket. I would estimate that is over 50% acomplete, and needs another proof reading.
The Adventures of Philip Strange
by Donald H. Kehoe. 4 Volumes ISBN 978-1-55246-837-1 @ $300.00
This is another huge project which is now essentially complete. There are a total of 64 stories, all contained in a single isse. One story proved elusive, but is now scanned and all of them have been proof read. The final step is scanning the illustrations which is problematic since most all the first page illos scan two pages. The pulp covers are all interesting but bear little revelance to the covers. This is but one character series contain in Flying Aces by Kehoe, but it is the one he is most remembered for. The set of 4 DJ’s has been designed and they are ready to fly. There are a total of 1,110,561 words
An Adventure Trilogy
by Arthur Douglas Howden Smith 3 vol. Set ISBN 978-1-55246-817-3 @ $60.00
This project contains 3 prequel novels which were serialized in Adventure Magazine to Treasure Island. They are; The Doom Trail, Beyond the Sunset and Porto Bello Gold. Treasure Island is my childhood favourite, so to learn how the gold got there in the first place is de rigeur. The books have been scanned and partially proof read. Still looking for some original Dustjackets for the book editions to illustrate. This book will not be published in 2011.
The Yellow Menace
by Louis Tracyand introduced by John D. Squires, Trade Paperback 221pp. ISBN 978-1-55246-872-2 @ $30.00.
This is a pet project of John Squires and I started to work with him in 2003. It is a novel which was originally serialized in the newspapers, and was syndicated to accompany the appearance of the silent movie which is now lost in the sands of time, although many photos still remain. It is presently with the proof reader, and I must integrate the photos, taken from a French translation into the reconstructed text. There are 80,000 words and an excellent commentary with much additional ephemeral illustated material collected by Squires.
The Schemes of Dr. Nikola
by Guy Boothby, with an introduction by Rick Lai and Aislise Bulfin. HC 400+pp. ISBN 978-1-55246-883-8 @ $75.00
This is a collection of five novels featuring a Moriarty type villain-hero. The five are: A Bid for Fortune — Doctor Nikola Returns — The Lust of Hate — Dr. Nikola’s Experiment — Farewell, Nikola. I am still waiting for the original magazine illustration to accompany the text. Aislise is assembling them in Ireland. Otherwise the project is ready to go, but could use another proof reading. There are 380,147 in the project.
The Compleat Adventures of Robert Lauriston Jones and Others
by Charles B. Stilson, Hard Cover 504 pp. ISBN 978-1-55246-885-2 @ $60.00
This project was originally suggested by Kevin Cook, and scanned by Brian Earl Jones of Detroit. It consists of two serialized novels from the pages of All-Star Weekly — A Man Named Jones and Land of the Shadow People as well as 8 unrelated short stories. The project is complete, and the dustjacket is presently being created by Patricia Visneskie. It will be a big book and contains 200, 000 words.
The Compleat Adventures of Gillian Hazeltine
by George F. Worts, Hard Cover Folio, 3 Volume 1000+pp. ISBN 978-1-55246-916-3 @ Price not set as yet
This is an ambitious project, by the author of an earlier lost treasure — Peter the Brazen. It collects 25 Novels, Novellas and Short stories. It collects the adventures of a lawyer who always wins his seemingly hopeless cases and drives the District Attorney mad in the process. The stories originally appeared in Argosy Magazine, and they were difficult but not impossible to assemble with the help of Randy Vanderbeek who has a lengendary collection of pulp magazines. There are 858, 399. The project has been proof read, but the illustrations must all be scanned and integrated. There are many pulp covers to select for the Dustjackets.
The Illusions of Norgil The Magician
by Walter Gibson. Hard cover 500pp. ISBN 978-1-55246-921-7 @ Price not set as yet.
Norgil is a Magician Detective who solves 23 cases in this collection. The stories first appeared in Crime-Busters and Mystery Magazine. They are still under copyright, and I have to track down the Walter Gibson estate representative. 2/3 of the stories were collected by Otto Penzler when the author was still alive, but volume 3 never appeared.
The Adventurers: The Wings of Danger
by Arthur A. Nelson, HC 400pp. ISBN 978-1-55246-889-0.
this project was originally suggested by Kevin Cook, and I’m still waiting for the photocopies to scan. The story has already been published as an inexpensive trade paperback, and may well be abnadoned altogether. This happens.
The Nictzin Dyalhis Portfolio
by Nictzin Dyalhis. Hard Cover 350pp. ISBN 978-1-55246-887-6 @ Price not set as yet
This volume collects the serialized novels from Weird Tales and short fiction from elsewhere. I am still looking for one story — “The Whirling Machete” from Underworld. I always appreciate help! the rest is scnned but could use another proof reading.
Inspector West Goes to War
by John Creasey, introduced by Francis M. Nevins. Hard Cover Folio 500+pp. ISBN 978-1-55246-946-0 @ $75.00
This volume collects all five Inspector West Novels that Creasey wrote during WWII. They are elusive now, and I obtained all five copies on loan from the collection of Robert Briney. The five novels are: Inspector West Takes Charge — Inspector West Leaves Town — Inspector West at Home — Inspector West Regrets — Holiday for Inspector West. The cover illustrations were made to order by Laurie Fraser Manifold, and are delightful. Mike Nevins introduction is comprehensive and compelling. There are 409,270 words to digest.
The Crime Magnet
by Sax Rohmer, with an introduction by Gene Christie, and an essay by John Robert Colombo) Trade Paperback 221+pp. ISBN 978-1-55246-950-7 @ $30.00
This is an uncollected series of stories that appeared in This Week. They are now out-of copyright in Canada, NOT in the USA. The magazine is elusive, and copies were obtained from The Library of Congress microfilm. The magazine is oversized and difficult if not impossible to scan. The stories are being transcribed by JRC; and Larry Knapp has agreed to supply as many of the original illustrations as possible. This is indeed a work in progress. Stay tuned.
The Compleat “Needle Mike”
by William E. Barrett. Hard Cover 400+ pp. ISBN 978-1-55246-949-1 @ $60.00
This is a series of 16 short stories from the pages of Dime Detective, featuring a detective who crated tattooes. I obtained all the pulps from Randy Vanderbeek, and they are scanned and in the pile to go to Florida for layout and proofing in March 2011.
Musing on Bookmarks and Bookplates
It has always been a source of irritation for me, that large retailers of books, purchase large quantities of books, undercut your established retail price, and then request return privileges for the unsold books in 180 days for full credit, that is if they have actually paid for them. Frequently they have not paid in the first place. Is it any wonder then that I have declined the opportunity of enjoying their business in the past. Imagine my surprise and displeasure then when I learned that a large US retailer of books was advertising on line the opportunity of pre-ordering a book that I had just approved to go to press not 24 hours before — at a substantial discount which also included shipping. I imagine, but do not know, it was on the basis of a starred review that had appeared in Publishers Weekly. With the basic premise that all resellers have to be treated the same — what to do? Well there is a tipped in page signed by the author or the illustrator. There’s a limited edition bookplate and or perhaps a creative bookmark. I decided on the latter two, and here is the result of my musing. The two interpretive paintings of Lovecraft and Conan Doyle are by Victor Molev. The Lovecraft will also be used on a cover of a volume of Poetry that August Derleth originally compiled in 1947 entitled Dark of the Moon in 2013; The Conan Doyle will also be used on a package cover for an electronic edition of an ACD Bibliography originally compiled in 1981 by Richard Lancelyn GReen and John Michael Gibson, and revised and updated by Philip Bergem. This project is in the final stage, and shold appear early in 2011.
BSI Bookplate 6 — Trade Edition
How did you meet August Derleth?
I’ll met everyone who reads this entry will have their own answer to this question. I first encountered his writing in the lobby of the Algonquin Hotel back in January 1991 at around 6:00 p.m. on a Thursday during the BSI weekend. I was standing in a group listening in on the conversation, trying desperately to learn Dr. Watson’s middle name? How many wives he actually had? Whether a goose really does have a crop? and What Sherlock Hoolmes actually did when he visited Tibet during the Great Hiatus.
David Galerstein, engaged me in conversation, and invited me to go for dinner later that evening. He asked me if I had ever read a Solar Pons story? I replied no; and he then recommended them to me. They were written by a fellow in Wisconsin, by the name of August Derleth. I visited Otto Penzler’s bookshop the next day for the first time, and purchased the two volume slip-cased, shrink-wrapped edition of “The Solar Pons Omnibus” along with some other Sherlockian items including a reading copy of the three volume Heritage Club edition of the Canon. Now that’s my story and I am sticking to it!
But I suspect I am not in the majority, far from it. I suspect the majority of Derleth’s readers today are either fans of H.P. Lovecraft; readers of his “Sac Prairie Saga” including fiction, poetry and journals; readers of the anthologies he compiled in Science Fictionand the Macabre; or encountered one of his columns in the newspaper; read one of his many book reviews; or read his many short stories in Weird Tales; or his fiction in Redbook Magazine; or one of his biographies about Zona Gale, or Emerson or Thoreau; or one of juvenile volumes as a child.
Like a diamond, August Derleth had many facets as a writer, that I have only discovered after I followed up on the advise of David Galerstein. When David was going through his collection many years later to divest himself of stuff preparing to meet Sherlock under the Reichenbach, he sent me the original PSI pin that he had received from Luther Norris, as a token of his esteem. I shall always treasure it, and wear it with pride.
High Water Marks in Canonical Illustrations
If you are not an afficiando of Sherlock Holmes stop reading this blog entry right now! If you are and you have a shelf of books allegedly penned by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle you will already know of Sidney Paget. But did you know that his brother Walter illustrated one of the stories. You will know of the work of Frederic Dorr Steele who created his Sherlock as a William Gillette look-alive and all these originals — if they survived the sands of time — are highly prized by their owners, and sell for very high prices at auction. There is no point in illustrating them again here, the majority are well known to us all. A definitive study of the engraver’s signatures is yet to be done, and this is a project that Richard Lancelyn Green and I discussed back in 2001; perhaps his notes still reside in a file in the Portsmouth Library archives?
Another complete set of 64 illustrations (2 for each of the 4 novels) was created by George and Betty Wells. The originals were numbered and given out as quiz prizes at meetings. I used the set to illustrate the pages of The Universal Sherlock Holmes back in 1994, and have seen a couple, not many in collections in the interim. I have seen a couple of sale by dealers, and the originals are very collectiable as well. In fact, if the truth be told, Sherlockians collect everything as the 24, 807 entries in USH will tell you. ZHere’s a couple to wet your appetite.
A Partridge in a “Punch”
… not in a pear tree … and not in December but rather on May 12, 1926 in Punch Magazine.
In an earlier blog I referred to “Patrick” not Partridge, so I must find that and emend the entry according! I well remember the first time I saw this caricature of “Punch Personalities” — Cameron Hollyer showed it to me on the 5th floor of the Toronto Refernce Library in the Conan Doyle room in 1991. The caricature nicely captured what we had been discussing at the time — the character outgrowing the creator. I thought of it once again leaving the theatre after “Sherlock Holmes” on January1st, 2010.
Back in 2005, I was invited to attend a book club meeting of the Quadrangle Society at Massey College. It was held in the library lined on three walls with bookshelves, and windows on the fourth. The shelves were repleat with books by Canadian authors and other Canadiana volumes. Not a single Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle title in the lot. Of course I might have missed one or two, but I don’t think so. On one wall was a bound run of Punch magazine from the late 1800’s through the 1930’s. I had fun finding this caricature because I did not remember the exact date of publication, but had confidence it was there. Even with the index the caricature eluded me for a while!
The though has now crossed my mind how many other Sherlock Holmes related items can be found between the covers of that bound run of Punch? Well a quick electronic search of the e-USH (Universal Sherlock Holmes by Ronald Burt DeWaal) just might cast some light on that question, and that’s the subject of a future blog.
Mr. Chang and Mr. Rafferty
E.A. Apple created these two characters to run in the pages of Detective Story Magazine (1919-1931) and reprinted in Best Detective Magazine (1933-1936). Mr. Chang is a Fu Man Chu equivalent; Mr. Rafferty is a Raffles equivalent. Mr. Chang has his headquarters in Montreal with a secret entrance, and travels in Eastern Canada to find his victims and accumulate his stolen fortunes in Quebec. Mr. Rafferty has his submarine-only accessible headquarters on an island off the east coast of America. His headquarters is a repository of vast amount of stolen wealth — cash, gold, precious gems and art. I have been gathering these stories together for the past 4 years with the able assistance of the members of the Sacred Six. I even received 3 stories and covers from Norway late last year; these had previously eluded me. Chang and Rafferty clash with lethal methods and wits in a couple of the stories with no definitive outcome, and certainly no Reichenbach Falls. The entire batch is now off to the proof reader, and the series of covers, including the reprints is off to Pat who will design the Dustjackets for the four folio sized volumes each with >400 pages double column format. After all there is 1.3 million words to deal with. You can find a complete bibliography at my web site, and the proposed covers to be retouched on the DJs. I will not supply the link, othereise WordPress will capture the entire series of covers listed there, and that’s alot of Megs to duplicate.
The son (Barny), the granddaughter (Heather) and grandson (Derek) of the author will contribute an introduction based on their memoris of the author, and the entire collection should add a significant brick in the Canadian Pulps Fiction story, since Elmer Albert Apple (not A. E. Apple, that was his pen name, and he also had others) was a Canadian who lived in Toronto.
And so the beat goes on! A dinner tonight with a special Coeliac Disease compatible cake to consume. Dim-Sum in the morning with a poet who spells his words the way they sound without capital letters. Dinner tomorrow night with an author celebrating his 88th birthday with friends, and he will have a new book to contemplate, and all his friends there to ask him to inscribe their copy, and finally a return Monday to the view of the windswept frozen lake, and the fireplace where I am methodically sorting and burning my friend Bill’s papers.
In re: Drs. J. de Grandin & S. Trowbridge
Since I published The Compleat Adventures of Dr. Jules de Grandin in three volumes at the end of August 2001, I have been asked many times what ever motivated me to undertake such a project? I would attempt at the time to give a simple explanation to the questioner, but I found myself repeating the same concatenation of facts and events, and frequently leaving out a number of the pieces of the mosiac for the sake of brevity.
I can say with a considerable degree of certainty that what follows is more or less what happened, although the people mentioned may place, and likely will place a different spin and perspective on the situation.
First of all I was born in 1946, so I can’t attest to have read these stories in my childhood! I remember that my father had a magazine rack in his Pharmacy when I was a child. It disappeared in the early 1950s when the pharmacy converted to selling only pharmaceuticals and therapeutic nostrums, and stopped selling candy and magazines. I hesitate to confess I missed the candy more than the pulps.
I first heard of Dr. Jules de Grandin and his adventures from a colleague William Nadel in one of those long evening telephone conversations about everything in general and nothing in particular. Bill and I have been collaborating on book entitled A Sherlock Holmes Old Time Radio Show Companion since January 1991; this collaboration still continues today, and the book is yet to be published. I usually see him at least once a year in New Year City in January on the Sherlock Holmes Birthday weekend sponsored by The Baker Street Irregulars, usually in the lobby of the Algonquin Hotel or at one of the events. The Radio Show Companion progresses very slowly, I have a working galley, but Nadel’s onging research into date of radio show performances, and the chapters on Edith Meiser are still a work in progress. In any case on one of my irregular telephone calls to motivate Bill to do a chapter and send it to me, he deftly changed the subject and mused about how he had read Dr Jules de Grandin stories as a child in Weird Tales magazine, and how difficult they were to find, and collecting them would be a good idea. He didn’t know exactly how many they were but there could be up to a 100 of them. Bill commented that Dr. Jules de Grandin and his sidekick Dr. Trowbridge were noted as the Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson of the Supernatural Sleuths. The conversation then drifted to Jacques Futrelle (The Thinking Machine stories), Baroness Orczy (The Old Man in the Corner stories, and The Scarlet Pimpernel), R. Austin Freeman (Dr. John Evelyn Thorndyke) and Maurice LeBlanc (Arsène Lupin). At the end of it, the seed was planted for de Grandin project and this was in 1996, or perhaps earlier. The seeds were also planted for the other Detectives as well.
I was talking with Peter Ruber the next day. Peter and I conversed virtually daily by phone back in those days, because we were collaborating on a collection of the writings of Charles Emerson Vincent Starrett. This project too, is still today, very much a work in progress; it is entitled The Vincent Starrett Memorial Library. Twelve of the twenty-four volumes have now appeared in print, and the other 12 volumes exist electronically on my computer’s hard drive, and are all virtually complete in text, and await an assortment of things such as a final proof reading, or the design of a dustjacket.
Well back to de Grandin, Peter knew of the Jules de Grandin stories. In fact he mentioned that August Derleth had published two of Seabury Quinn’s books — Roads (Arkham House) and The Phantom Fighter (Mycroft and Moran). Peter thought it would be a good idea to try and find the copyright holder who was either the second wife or the son Seabury Quinn, Jr. to seek permission to proceed with the project.
But in the meantime he had already assembled a collection of essays that Quinn wrote for Weird Tales entitled “Weird Crimes” and “Servants of Satan” and we decided to start with this collection. Initially the plan was for two separate publications, but as the page proofs came together, it was apparent that a single volume would suffice.
Over the course of the nine months this search continued, and Peter finally found the son living in retirement in The Bronx in New York. He was very agreeable to the project, and knew nothing of the second wife who had married his father after he had his first stroke. She had been his nurse prior to the marriage, and the son and the step mother did not get along well, and he had not heard about her in over 10 years. I subsequently found information about the registration of her death in a small community outside of Boston in 1986, and therefore did not pursue the matter further. Seabury Quinn’s filing cabinet likely followed with the widow to Massachusetts, and is now lost in the sands of time!
Peter also knew that Seabury had written editorials for Casket and Sunnyside, a trade magazine serving the Funeral Home Industry. When Quinn stepped down as the Editor of this magazine he assumed the responsibility of Editor for another trade magazine produced by The Dodge Chemical Company of Boston Massachusetts. There were some current issues of this magazine available from the local mortician, but I was initially unable to unearth any archive, and none of the Reference Libraries I checked had a run of this journal. I contacted John Dodge at Dodge Company Headquarters, and he graciously invited me to the company library in Boston because they had a complete bound run available to refer to. I visited the library for two days in May 1997, and worked through every issue of the magazine. Quinn started to write for the magazine in 1936. Each magazine contained an editorial, and also a column entitled “This I Remember” by Jerome Burke. This column was written by Quinn, but published under the pseudonym Jerome Burke. There were over 145 of these separate columns, and then in the early 1970s, three years after his death, the columns started a second run, and they still appear in the quarterly magazine published today. I made a second set of photocopies of this series, and sent it along to Peter Ruber, who felt, that these would be of limited interest to those who read Quinn’s weird and horror fiction. And so, I set the project aside until the Jules de Grandin project was completed.
In the fall of 1997 Peter Ruber sent me a photocopy from Weird Tales of two of the Jules de Grandin adventures. Neither of them inspired me. I did read them with interest, and I spoke with Allen Hubin in White Bear Lake Minnesota who kindly forwarded a Seabury Quinn Bibliography from one of the many reference works on his shelves. Allen and I first talked of his major reference work Crime Fiction II. He was working to produce a CD-ROM version entitled Crime Fiction III. More recently Allen Hubin and I are now collaborating to publish his magnum opus Crime Fiction IV, a comprehensive bibiliography of crime fiction from 1749 through 2000.
In January 1998, I flew out of Buffalo airport to attend the Sherlock Holmes’s Birthday Weekend in New York City. The weather was inclement and I drove to Alden New York the night prior to the trip to overnight with Carl Thiel. We had a great evening of conversation after a trip to McDonald’s and I retired to the spare bedroom, with the room lined with shelves of books. I found a couple of items of great interest on those shelves that evening, but in particular a couple of collections of the A.J. Raffles stories by E.W. Hornung and a couple of paper back collections of Jules de Grandin stories with commentary by Robert Weinberg. Carl let me borrow them on a read and return basis. I read these with great interest on the flight to New York from Buffalo and the return flight three days later.
I was more inspired with the Raffles character, and on my next trip to Sauk City, Wisconsin I visited “Place of Hawks,” the home of August Derleth and chatted with April his daughter and her husband David Rajel. I got permission to borrow the Raffles titles from the library of August Derleth to scan them at my leisure. I got Mr. Justice Raffles, on interlibrary loan. I borrowed a copy of the play from Richard Lancelyn Green, but the A.J. Raffles Portfolio and The Collected Works of E. W. Hornung is the subject of another article, but while E.W. is a great story teller he is hardly the subject of interest for the Weird or Horror story afficiado!
I returned the Raffles books a couple of months later in the spring and had a long talk with Dave Rajel at that time. The subject turned to Seabury Quinn, and David went upstairs and came back with Roads and The Phantom Fighter from the Family collection of Arkham House titled. I borrowed these two volumes next and returned them the next day after visiting Giedrerich’s print shop in Prairie de Sac to make copies. Roads fascinated me, and the collection of stories in The Phantom Fighter sparked my interest to read more.
I mentioned this to Dave when I returned the books, and he grinned mischievously, and took me down downstairs to the basement room across from the Derleth’s Detective and Weird and Horror Fiction library. He showed me a wonderful collection of Weird Tales Magazines carefully preserved in mylar folders. I happened to have the Quinn bibiliography list that Hubin had sent me in the car.
The rest of the day was a write off. I meticulously worked through the many, many volumes of Weird Tales — in immaculate condition — I might add, something that was totally lost on me in my ignorance. These issues dated back to the early 1920s, and they were obviously accumulated by Derleth starting as a teenager.
The pile selected fit nicely into an Archive Box. The next day was a write off as well, standing patiently in front of a photocopier at Giegerich’s. I was ably assisted by Henry Russell who kindly made high definition colour reproductions of all the covers that featured de Grandin stories. I also first discovered that Quinn had written other weird-horror fiction besides the De Grandin tales. Starting in the late thirties, I discovered many other Quinn stories, that had illustrated covers. These were not listed in the list from Hubin, and this was a temporary loose end. I made photocopies of them as well, but laid the project aside in lieu of completing the de Grandin collection.
I now had a list of a total of 93 stories that I was looking for. I had a total of 63 from the Derleth archives. All I had to do was scan and proof read these, and continue to look for more. The foxed pulp paper and the Weird Tales text font in two columns, combines to be a difficult scan, and so the proof reading proved to be a lenthy and laborious process which I plodded away on through 1998 and early 1999 while I contined to work on various other Derleth collections including In Lovecraft’s Shadow and The Final Adventures of Solar Pons. Now each of these books have their stories as well! but those are both the subject of another essay and another day.
In June of 1999 my internet provider decided to go out of business, and I was left with no e-mail service (gav@gbd.com) for the summer. I quite enjoyed it, but when I got a new service in August and a new and present e-mail address (gav@bmts.com), I retrieved a batch of 300 messages in one lump from the business who inherited the server equipment of my original provider. I worked my way meticulously through these messages, and there were a couple of frustrated messages from Alice Bentley of The Stars Our Destination a purveyor of books in Chicago who wanted to purchase a wholesale quantity of In Lovecraft’s Shadow and other Derleth titles for her inventory. I was travelling to Sauk City to attend the Walden West Festival in late September. It was held early that year to accommodate the visit of Ramsay Campbell. I offered to personally deliver the order because I was passing through Chicago and could save her the postage expense. Alice and I shared coffee that morning that I delivered the books, and we got to know each other. She mentioned that she had purchased her mail order book business from Bob Weinberg and that Mail Order was a significant part of her business, and Mail Order was where most of the Derleth titles sold.
I asked where did Bob Weinberg live? She told me and furthermore gave me his address and phone number in the South Chicago suburbs. The car was however still loaded with books and I continued my trip to Sauk City. I delivered Bourland to James P. Roberts and The Weird Western Adventures of Haakon Jones to Aaron P. Larson. I also delivered books to Arkham House and to The August Derleth Society. The car was empty but I did have a working page proofs of the de Grandin Omnibus with me. It was a memorable weekend (an understatement). Ramsay Campbell gave a great presentation, and I met the founder of the August Derleth Society Richard Fawcett and his wife Jayne who were visiting from Uncasville, Connecticut. Dick Fawcett had a look at the de Grandin project as it existed at that time and gave me strong encouragement to continue it to completion. He also noted that he would very much like to see Roads back in print.
I called Bob Weinberg that Friday evening, and we made arrangements for me to visit him at his home, upon my return visit from Sauk City. Bob and I met the next Tuesday afternoon. I didn’t have any problem finding his home. I showed him the De Grandin page proofs for the 63 stories and asked if he could help with the remainder. He went to the garage and came back with a set of his 6 paperbacks which he had collected some 30 plus of the stories. I posted Carl’s two volumes back to him when I got home the next day)
Over the course of the next nine months I worked with Bob to collect the remaining stories. I would borrow the selected volumes of Weird Tales on my way to Sauk City. I would make the copies and Henry would make copy of the requisite colour covers. and I would return the volumes on my return trip to Shelburne.
In mid-2000 I received an e-mail from Jim Rockhill of Dowagiac, Michigan. He had posted an inquiry to the August Derleth Society Web Site, and I had received it for a reply. I called Jim, and we discussed many matters relating to Derleth and other Weird and Horror Fiction authors. I asked him if he would be interested in proof reading the de Grandin Stories? He agreed. I suggested that as he was proofing the stories, he should consider writing an essay for Volume Three and he agreed to do this as well.
Dick and Jayne Fawcett and I met Seabury Quinn Junior for Dinner in New York City in January 2001, and Seabury agreed to write a brief commentary for Volume 2.
Bob Weinberg also agreed to written additional commentary for Volume one. On one of my subsequent visits to Bob’s place I discussed the other Weird Fiction by Quinn, and he gave me a mimeographed list of the contents of Weird Tales. This was useful, and I compiled a definitive list of all Quinn’s other appearances in the magazine, as well a selection of other Quinn writings that also appeared in the pulps.
Bob suggested that Seabury had written a series of five short stories featuring Carlos the Murderer entitled The Vagabond-at-Arms. I suggested that would make a great “next” project when the de Grandin Volumes were completed. This volume was published in late 2001.
The page proofs had grown from one volume to two volumes and finally three volumes. Initially the stories were all added to the end of the computer file, and then they were sorted in the order of their first appearance in Weird Tales and divided into the three separate volumes.
I attended Walden West Festival in Sauk City again in October 2000. I met Dwayne Olson and Philip Ramon one of the principals behind Fedogan and Bremer. He suggested that I should work with Charles McKee who ran an on-line book shop on the internet. I was in touch with Charles, and he arranged to take prepublication orders for The Compleat Adventures of Jules de Grandin.
Bob Weinberg had been invited to attend the Festival as the Guest Speaker. He spoke on Derleth’s weird and horror fiction as it appeared in Weird Tales. We had a great weekend together and visited Place of Hawks and met with the Derleth family as well as travelling around Sauk City to see all the familiar sites including the Railroad Bridge which has now been blown up — but that’s another story. Bob presented his latest publication Horror of the 20th Century: An Illustrated History to April Derleth, a collection of magazine and horror fiction art work. In fact this publication was the reason that there was a delay in the deGrandin project. I picked up the last of the covers illustrations and the remaining stories which were contained in volumes that had been sent to Bob’s printer for this latest publication. The accumulation of text and covers was now complete. A total of 92 stories and one novel in addition to 35 different colour covers. A set of page proofs was prepared and dispatched to Jim Rockhill, who had already been working on the project for some time.
Jim carefully worked through the page proofs, and did an excellent job over the next 6 months of proof reading the stories.
I was also introduced to Philp Ramon at this Walden West Festival. He was one of the co-owners of Fedogan and Bremer, and he suggested I get in touch with Charles McKee who ran in web site in British Columbia. Charles listed all the F&B publications, and Philip though that Charles would be interested in also listing the publications of The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box.
I was in touch with Charles and he was interested, especially in the de Grandin project, and he mounted a campaign to obtain pre-publication orders. this was very successful, and in large measure accounts for the print printing of one hundred sets selling out before they were received. Likewise the second printing of sixty sets; a third printing of sixty sets; and a fourth printing of forty sets. Now Charles McKee has teased me about this low initial print run, and I suppose to a degree the criticism is justified — but here’s my excuse. I use a printer in Kitchener which is a 125 kilometer drive from home, and that’s 250 kilometers roundtrip. Now sixty sets of three is a nice comfortable load for my jeep with the read seat down. A larger printing simply wouldn’t fit and it would make a necessity of two trips. These sets are expensive to produce, and when you are printing and custom binding them individually, it is simply not necessary to maintain a large inventory. There is no economy of scale in producing larger print runs, until you get above 500 sets.
There was one printing problem in Volume 2 of the first printing. Four lines of text at the end of one story on page 662 ran into the cover of the next story on the same page. This was corrected for the second printing retaining the same pagination. Otherwise the various printings are identical.
The prepublication price of the set of three volumes was $225.00 plus shipping. The current price is $250 plus shipping. This is not likely to change in the foreseeable future.
I have received many compliments on the production standards for the set. I take no credit for this whatsoever. The text blocks are printed two up by a Xerox Docutect printer at M&T InstaPrint of Kitchener Ontario on 70 lb Plainefield white, grain short paper. These text block are knifed in two and sent shipped for custom binding by Bookshelf Bindery of Ridgetown, Ontario with black buxom with gold embossing on the front board and on the spine. The distinctive woven red ribbon bookmark comes from a spool I acquired in Nairobi, Kenya where I served as a Flight Surgeon in the Canadian Armed Forces for six weeks in 1993. But that’s another story!
The logo used for the set was designed by Henry Lauritzen for Peter Ruber in 1968 for his Candlelight Press when he was publishing the works of August Derleth. Peter invited me to adopt it and I have with considerable pride. It features a candle, book and deerstalker cap, and the the name — The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box — derived from the fact that most of the publications are Sherlockian scholarship and pastiches, and Dr. John H. Watson kept his papers for his Sherlock Holmes cases in a Battered Tin Dispatch Box in the vaults of Cox and Company in London. This building was destroyed in WWII in the German Blitz bombing of London in 1940. Since I use a microcomputer to compile the various literary projects, and they are stored on the computer’s hard drive and are managed with a silicon chip, I substituted “silicon” for “tin” and hence the name. One than one person has frankly told me its a silly name, not memorable and too long. I agree on the first and third counts, but the problem is I like it! and that’s the end of that discussion.
I have been criticized for the assembled two part full colour dustjackets. Some collectors have recoiled in horror when they learn I used Scotch 3M invisible tape to reinforce the assembly with Lepage’s two way stick glue. I take full responsibility for this decision. I attribute the two part DJ to a matter of cost. The Colour Docutect 80 has a limitation in size to 11 x 17″. These folio size volumes require an oversized DJ. A minimum length of 2 x 8½” + spine + width of front and back flap is required. The cost of doing three jackets by the traditional route for a small print run is simply prohibitive.
I picked the first printing up at the end of August 2001 and had them all in the mail before departing for Door County for the 1st Reunion of Canonical Conference and Caper. A thoroughly memorable weekend. The last before September 11th!
I received positive feedback from many of the purchasers, and they requested more Seabury Quinn. I took up the Vagabond project once again, and worked on This I Remember (March 2002). I also produced a new edition of Roads (June 2002) using the original Weird Tales text and new illustrations by Paul Churchill.
I have now collected all the other Quinn appearances in Weird Tales, as well as other pulp magazine appearances of Quinn’s weird and horror fiction. It looks as if this form another two similar size volumes. But the difference is there will be not so many covers to illustrate. These stories will fit into another volume which I have tentatively titled The Other Weird Fiction of Seabury Quinn (Volume 4)
I have also started to collect all the Professor Forrester Detective Stories series, The Major Harvey Sturdevant of the Secret Service stories and Captain Sir Haddingway Ingraham Jameson Ingraham (Hiji) stories which appeared in Short Stories. Aomw of these titles are proving quite elusive, and interested readers should contact me at the e-mail listed above for the current want list. There’s about 12 stories on the list.
Adding up all the appearance my count comes to approximately 300 stories. Now Seabury Quinn himself relates in an introduction to The Phantom Fighter, that he published over 500 short stories. Was his memory playing a trick on him, or are there still more than 200 stories to find in the pulps? Did he ever publish under a pseudonym? Other than the “This I Remember” series by Jerome Burke I don’t know of any other pseudonyms.
When Seabury Quinn died on Christmas Eve in 1969 virtually none of his writing was in print. I can say with some pride that Seabury Quinn and the character he created are now back in print, and they are likely to remain so for the forseeable future.
I had dinner with his son Seabury Quinn, Junior at The Oyster Bar in Grand Central Station in New York City in early January 2003. It was a great seafood repast and a great evening of conversation, cheese and cigars. We talked of his father and his writing—
So there you have it, my recollection of how I came to publish the three volumes of The Compleat Adventures of Jules de Grandin by Seabury Quinn — good memories all!
This was an article I wrote for Pulpcon a couple of years ago now. It appeared in their magazine, but almost a year late, but it did appear. At Pulpcon 2007, I was welcomed by a number of members of Peaps to the group and I was very flattered, and regretted not being able to visit Brian’s suite to dialogue. It was suggested that I had not included by “autobiography” with my first contribution, and I set about to do so, but realized that the article above contained most if not all of what I was going to say, so why reinvent the wheel?
The following eight pages further outline the various pulp projects that will occupy my time in the next couple of years. I welcome you constructive comments to expand and improve them.
The first page announces the Secret Six, a six-pack of projects from Argosy which have been referred to in previous editions of Peaps, but also The Satan Hall Omnibus. The six-pack also refers to the Editorial Board (The Sacred Six) which meets irregularly, but keeps in touch electronically. I also include the Table of Contents for Gillian Hazeltine by Worts, The Philip Strange Stories by Kehoe, and The A.E. Apple series of Mr. Change and Mr. Rafferty adventures. Collectively these contain quite a few words which will be attacked one pulp at a time.
A genuine Vincent Starrett signature
On my way to Sauk City WI I stopped in Oak Forest IL to visit with my friend and colleague Bob Weinberg. I presented him with a a total of nine (9) books that we had collaborated on over the past couple of years, all discussed else in this blog or on the website — The Macabre Quarto (in hard cover with dustjacket with the Arkham House Logo on the front board, and the August Derleth Society Logo on the spine of the cloth in gold leaf.) The Compleat John Solomon in three volumes, The Adventures of a Professional Corpse, and Carnacki-The Ghost Finder by William Hope Hodgson. The latter was the last of the Mycroft and Moran editions to bring back into print. I arrived there the evening of 23 February, after a harrowing afternoon at Customs and Border Protective in Detroit. A reasonable Customs Official finally realized that my carload of books did not pose a threat to the US of A.
I arrived at 02:30 hrs and arose at 06:00 to start work to prepare for the 100th birthday celebrations at The Freethinkers’ Park Hall at 13:00. You can read about all that elsewhere with pictures at derleth.org or in the next edition of The August Derleth newsletter. I was asked to say a few words, in fact my name was on the program — first I heard about it! I had received a couple of negative comments about my tie which featured Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck and this was one of the rare occasions when I wore my tattered deerstalker proudly. I mentioned that The Solar Pons stories had lead me to discover Derleth years ago, and that Derleth if his writings survived being dead and out-of-print, he would be remembered for his Sac Prairie Saga — novels, short stories and his poetry and his Journals, especially Walden West. I closed by pointing out that Bugs BUnny had achieved immortality through his creator, and I did not remember his name at the time (Walter Lance I was reminded by Richard Fawcett a little later on the phone) and that it was desire to get Augie’s writings a similar measure of immortality by bringing them back into print.
The next day April and Walden Derleth invited Kay Price and I out to dinner at The Place of Hawks. I presented both of them with Hard Cover sets of The Macabre Quarto and they were pleased with the gold leaf Arkham Logo as well. We talked about future projects, and April invited me, and I quickly added Robert Weinberg’s name to edit and publish “Seventy-Five Years of Arkham House.” I did the math and this was 2014. I asked if there was anything in between and we agreed that Bob and I should explore the Arkham back list for potential revised and expanded projects. I spoke with Bob later that evening on the phone and he immediately suggested a hard cover facsimile of the 1948-1949 Arkham Sampler in a two volume slipcased edition.
On Friday Kay and I travelled to Dubuque Iowa to visit David Hammer and I delivered a supply of his most recent book For the Record — My Name is Hammer. We went to lunch, and I was left out the table conversation about the Supernatural and Ghosts, and David was enchanted with Kay’s knowledge in these matters. The car was then loaded with boxes of books that David had received back from the Wessex Press in Indianapolis.
Saturday we travelled to the Milwaukee library. We had a little trouble finding the celebration on the second floor. The old library is a labyrinth of stairs and elevators. This event will be reported elsewhere as well.
I met with April Derleth on Sunday morning and I was able to purchase August Derleth’s stamp collection in two large Banker’s File boxes, and it was a tight fit in the vehicle with Hammer’s books.
On my way home I stopped for lunch with Donald Izban in Park Ridge, a suburb of Chicago. I had my first Sazerac, a whisk(e)y cocktail a specialty of New Orleans, LA and I was slurring my words after a couple of sips. I delivered the hard cover edition of the Izbans’ book The Problem of the Nine Sazeracs. Donald and Pat were both pleased with Joe Bogart’s design and full colo(u)r dustjacket.
Next Bob Weinberg, and as soon as I got there he said he had something for me. He presented me with an Argosy check for 500.00 made out to Vincent Starrett. It was signed on the back by the author and it was payment for the story “The Day Before Yesterday — Argosy” — I was pleased both with the item and also with the thought behind giving it to me. Bob noted that this was when Argosy was a slick magazine, and it might be a non-fiction article. I noted that I was not familiar with the title, but would look it up when I got home. We had dinner together and we discussed the Forthcoming Arkham House List, and agreed that we could likely make an announcement at The Windy City Pulp and Paper back Show at the beginning of May. We discussed many other things including a project in development for some time — the collected writings of Nictzin Dyalhis and The Adventures of Rogan Kincaid by Henning Nelms as by Hake Talbot. I had transported a box of pulps from April to Bob and one of the items was the original appearance of “The Rim of the Pit” in Thrilling Mystery Novel Fall 1945.
When I got home, I discovered that “The Day Before Yesterday” was one of the chapters in Persons from Porlock. I replished it in Volume 20 of the Starrett Memorial Library series, and I will append it here for your reading pleasure. It is quintessential Starrett dense wonderful writing for he was a writer’s writer, the “Last Bookman.” I will also append dj for Starrett Volumes 20. The dj’s for Volume 21 and 22 are equally attractive.
The Day Before Yesterday
There is a phrase I shall never forget. It leaped out at me, a small boy, from between the covers of a book — “the field of the cloth of gold.” The book was in my grandfather’s library, and I am still grateful to the old gentleman for those seven words of sorcery. They stand to-day, after many years, in the forefront of my memories of youthful discovery. I suspect that in some degree they have colored literature for me ever since. For a long time, at any rate, they were the sign and symbol of all that was romantic and alluring in a painted past. Thereafter — after their discovery, I mean — history, as it was written in fiction, was for me a confused and colorful drama of rogues and heroes, of haggard kings and kingly vagabonds, of lovely unfortunate women and brave Byronic men. I had found the magic glasses — the spectacles of glamor — and was forever lost in the wonder of that timeless mist that is the past.
The day before yesterday has always been a day of glamor, of gilt and glory. The present is sordid and prosaic. Time colors history as it does a meerschaum pipe. The sweet days of old are little vignettes of vanished happiness and splendor quaintly preserved in little silver frames. Is it not so? And yet, we may be sure that our grandsires, too, and their grandsires before them, looked back with captured eyes to the “good old days” of still earlier generations.
The thought is not particularly new; but it is an excellent text for a gossip on the perennial popularity of historical fiction. We associate the cloak and sword drama with other years; but it is still with us — it has never become quite extinct. Naturalism and contemporary bad manners may be the order of the day, but the thin echo of clinking swords and the clatter of horses’ hoofs never dies in the distance…. It is not too bad, I think, that this is so. Tastes are as catholic as bookshelves are wide; and the discriminating reader may admit the excellence of the Russians without yielding an ounce of his liking for the romantics. Possibly it is only a matter of alphabetic arrangement; and after Dostoevsky, on the shelves, come Doyle and Dumas.
An Archbishop of Canterbury once put a question to Betterton, the actor: “How is it that you players, who deal only with things imaginary, affect your auditors as if they were real; while we preachers, who deal with things real, affect our auditors as if they were imaginary?” The player answered: “It is, my lord, because we actors speak of things imaginary as if they were real, while you preachers too often speak of things real as if they were imaginary.”
The remark may be applied to the writing of history and historical fiction. Often enough historians are stately, solid fellows, dealing unromantically with arid fact, while poets and romancers, out of distance and illusion, create living images of times and persons as perhaps they never were. In the end, it is the poetry and the romance that survives. It is fiction, not fact, that the world wants with its evening pipe. Critics of life and letters, with painfully creased brows, and brains that fairly creak with portentous thoughts of no particular importance, cry out at the false glamor of such presentations; but wise men enjoy the solitary horseman, the clatter of hoofs in darkness, the gleam of swords in moonlight, and the lusty bawling of picturesque adventurers spoiling for a fight. If, in such fictive tales of — eld, is perhaps the word — an enormous gusto and a delicate but not overdrawn atmosphere of burlesque or satire be contrived, so much the better. Facts, after all, are only things that a relatively small minority has agreed to believe; and fact — in the singular — is not too rashly to be confused with truth. “What is truth?” asked a celebrated jurist, in a celebrated work of historical fiction; and the time has come to answer him. Truth is that which seems to be true, and that which one chooses to regard as true.
But is it stranger than fiction? How much more readily we remember romance than history! Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Richard certainly are not the Richard and Macbeth of history, yet we cling to those familiar portraits and discard the so-called truth. “Macbeth,” Sir Walter Scott informs us, “broke no law of hospitality in his attempt on Duncan’s life.” He attacked and slew the King at a place called Bothgowan, back there in 1039, it appears; not, as Shakespeare asserts, in his own castle of Inverness. The act was bloody, as was the complexion of the time; but the claim of Macbeth to the throne, according to the rules of Scottish succession (and according to Sir Walter), was better than that of Duncan. As a king, the tyrant so much deplored was actually, it is said, a firm, just, and equitable prince.
The very existence of such persons as Banquo and his son, Fleance, has been disputed by authority; and there is small reason to believe that the latter fled farther from Macbeth than across the flat scene of the stage — as called for in the playwright’s direction. Neither were Banquo and his son ancestors of the house of Stuart, so ’tis said. Sir Walter, himself, for all his strictures upon the accuracy of Shakespeare, was a fictioneer who took what liberties he pleased with the grim hussy, History.
Yet the mind retains completely the impressions made by the imposition of genius. While our language exists, and the works of Shakespeare are read, history may say what it will; but the general reader will remember Macbeth as a sacrilegious usurper, and Richard as a deformed murderer who once cried lustily for a horse.
Or, conceivably, the greater popularity of romance is founded on its interest in those things which, for the most part, are minimized by the historian, save where they bear upon the — to him — larger affairs of state. It is only the occasional and dilletante writer of history who fathers an adequate volume on the domestic tantrums of a princess or the love-life of a prince. One is grateful for the revival of interest in the wife and lives — the life and wives, one should say — of Henry VIII. Obviously, it is a subject that lends itself admirably to the talents of the writer who, like certain photographers, specializes in groups…. Popular interest in Henry, one fancies, will always be in the number of his wives, rather than in his overthrow of the monasteries; and nobody ever will remember the number. How many were there, now? At first blush, eight; but one is sure to confuse the number of Henrys with the number of the last Henry’s wives. It is possible that there were only six. In point of fact, there were just six, one is informed. But, really, does it matter? And, of course, it is not alone the number of wives that draws one to the subject and makes it memorable; it is, in large measure, the spectacular fashion of their removal. “Bluebeard for happiness!” as Henry is reported to have said, looking up from a volume of M. Maeterlinck’s dramas.
I was speaking, however, of the novel of the cloak and sword, of historical fiction, of history in fiction; and defending its right to be plausible rather than factual. I hasten to add that I am far from deprecating the more immediate novel of contemporary consciousness, concerned with the several manifestations — sex, religion, politics, et al — of our complex civilization. I suggest merely that we get a better perspective on all these no doubt momentous matters in a sparkling tale of other days, in which less significance is attached to them than to the happier consideration of pinking the villain and rescuing the girl. In such narratives, the irritating matters suggested are relegated to their proper places, with a lift of the eyebrow and a toss of the shoulder.
Pulpwood Proofing
A Thousand Fops or How I Got Into the Proofreading Biz
by Rodney Schroeter
At the 2004 Windy City Pulp and Paperback Show, I was on a mission.
Obviously, I was looking for pulps, originals, books, and any other miscellanea that struck my fancy. But my mission went even beyond that.
I’ve been to every annual Windy City show since it started in 2001. In the years since, I’ve picked up lots of small-press publications that reprint the kind of pulp fiction that makes me smile, clench my teeth, widen my eyes so that the whites show all around, and chuckle insanely, causing my wife to wake in alarm and order me to turn off the light.
And when I did finally turn out the light, I could not easily fall asleep. It was rage that kept me awake. The seething resentment that had built up, causing my skin temperature to rise, as I read publication after publication.
All those typographical errors!
How could they publish books with all those typos? Didn’t anyone actually read them before the manuscripts were sent off to the printer in Timbuktoo?
I don’t think the science of psychology is advanced enough to explain why I developed my razor-sharp ability to catch errors as I read. (Actually, I don’t think psychology is advanced at all, but that’s another rant.) Part of it has to do with my decision to master the English language. (I haven’t done that, quite yet.)
I think, also, that my error-catching mindset is due to the fact that I deliberately chose to never mentally skip over errors. I remember a nice lady that my mother knew, when I was ten, lending me some science fiction paperbacks. Even back then, I didn’t let the publisher get away with anything; I circled and corrected each error with my orange-ink cigar-pen before I returned them to her.
In contrast, most normal people would shrug it off. An error? OK, I know what it should be; let’s move on. But for me, it’s like tripping over a carpet.
Thus, at the 2004 Windy City convention, I stopped at each publisher’s table, gave them a spiel about how I could help improve their product, and submitted a business card. I’d also put an ad in the show’s program and here, for posterity, it is:
Publishers!
You put a lot of work into your book or periodical. But your publication’s attractive, professional look is all too easily undermined–made amateurish and substandard–by only a handful of typos.
I can help! My eagle eye, and mastery of the English language, make my proofreading skills and ability to spot typos unsurpassed.
And I’ll do it for free!!–the first time I work with you. Thereafter, you’ll find my fees so reasonable, my services so invaluable, that you wouldn’t consider going to press without first subjecting your manuscript to my stern scrutiny.
Have a project in the works? Please e-mail me!
Rodney Schroeter
Proofreader
sreels@execpc.com
Several publishers offered polite, “We’ll let you know” responses. As I walked down an aisle in the dealers’ room, one such publisher caught up with me. “Come to think of it,” he said, “I do have something you could work on.”
I returned to the tables of Dr. George Vanderburgh, owner of the Battered Silicon Dispatch Box press. I have asked him just what the Dickens that phrase means, but he simply responds with a cagey smile that it’s a reference to a Sherlock Holmes adventure. (Dr. George is a serious Sherlockian.)
“I have this project that needs proofing,” he said, bringing forth two thick spiral-bound manuscripts from one of his boxes. It was The Compleat Adventures of the Moon Man, written by Frederick C. Davis. I’d never heard of the character; working with Dr. George would prove to invaluably enhance my knowledge of pulp authors and characters. (Another recent tremendous boost to my pulpwood education is Robert Sampson’s 6-volume work, Yesterday’s Faces, which I’ll write about at some point.)
“Can you have this done in a month?” Dr. George asked. I thrust out my chest and said, “Sure!”
It was no idle boast. Proofing that nearly 800-page set of 38 stories was about all I did for the next few weeks, but I got her done. The absolute worst aspect of that job: I did not have the source material. So I was left guessing on a lot of mysterious typos, which will no doubt lead to pulp fiction historians, centuries from now, sneeringly making light of my work on that edition.
Dr. George has provided me, for subsequent projects, with that much-needed source material, so I have been able to check the input whenever that wacky OCR program has garbled up the output beyond all recognition.
And those subsequent projects? Here they are, to date:
(Most are part of a series called Lost Treasures from the Pulps, edited by and/or with input from Robert Weinberg and other collectors/pulp historians.)
2005, The Compleat Adventures of the Green Ghost, by G.T. Fleming-Roberts. Edited by Garyn Roberts. 2 volumes.
2006, The Compleat Great Merlini Saga, by Clayton Rawson. 2 volumes.
2006, The Compleat Park Avenue Hunt Club, by Judson P. Philips. Edited by Garyn Roberts. 2 volumes.
2007, The Other Seabury Quinn Stories, by Seabury Quinn. 2 volumes.
2009, The Compleat Saga of John Solomon, by H. Bedford-Jones. 3 volumes.
2009, The Macabre Quarto, by August Derleth (jointly published by the August Derleth Society and Arkham House). 4 volumes.
2009 (forthcoming), The Compleat Adventures of The Suicide Squad, by Emile C. Tepperman.
Incomplete and unpublished, The Strange Ocean Vistas of Philip M. Fisher.
In-process, The Compleat Adventures of Luther McGavock, by Merle Constiner.
In-process, The Compleat Adventures of Satan Hall, by Caroll John Daly.
Finally: In case you’re wondering, “What’n’e heck does that title refer to?” Well, that was one of the most interesting boners the OCR program pulled on my most recently-completed project, The Suicide Squad. The output: “a thousand fops”. The input? “a thousand Japs”. (This was published during World War II, so that kind of thing was OK then.)
Rodney Schroeter, in Wisconsin
The Batteredbox's Weblog 